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American Bookshop is a trick-taking game in which players must follow suit when possible, there is no trump, and the highest card of the lead suit wins the trick. However, if the sum of the cards played to a trick exceeds a certain value — 14-17, depending on the player count — the trick ends immediately, and whoever played the last card claims the trick. As such, players may not have equal hand sizes.
A round ends when one player is out of cards; the remaining players then simultaneously choose and reveal which cards still in hand they want to add to their collection. Each card a player takes is worth -1 point, but if a player has collected more cards of a suit than each other player, they instead earn +1 point per card in this suit. After as many rounds as the number of players, whoever has the most points wins.
American Bookshop Review
- Very simple rules, playable with a standard deck of cards.
- The twist of short-circuiting tricks provides interesting strategic depth.
- Scoring encourages careful hand management and defensive play.
- Accessible to players who don't typically play trick-taking games.
- Can be played with 3, 4, or 5 players, with a slight preference for 3 or 4.
- The official published version is completely sold out and hard to find.
- The strategic depth can be baffling and non-intuitive at first, taking several hands to grasp.
- Holding back cards that hurt you can sometimes feel like an afterthought rather than a proactive strategy.
- Loosely based on famous novels
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Hand Management — Players manage cards in their hand, deciding which to play on each trick and when to hold cards back, especially those that might score negative points.
- Set Collection — Players collect cards won in tricks, aiming to have the most cards of certain colors to score positive points, while avoiding collecting cards of other colors.
- Thresholding — A key mechanic where the sum of card values in a trick reaching or exceeding a specific target number (based on player count) immediately ends the trick, regardless of all players having played a card.
- Trick-Taking — Players play cards to a central area, and the highest card of the lead suit typically wins the trick, though this can be altered by the threshold mechanic.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- this is a game that could be played with a standard deck of 52 playing cards and I'll show you exactly how to do that it's very very simple simple
- it's a little bit of like a strategic tactical hurdle but the mechanics of it are simple it's very intuitive and everybody understands what's going on it just becomes then the puzzle of trying to figure out how to play it well
- I love that you can just play this with a um a deck of cards
- I can't recommend it enough